So I've had this idea for a twisted adept for a little bite now so I finely got off my butt and started working on it.

The concept is centered are round a Depleted uranium (DU) weapon focus sword. Basically I stated the sword as follows Damage: (str/2 + 4)P, AP: -2, Reach: 1, Availability: NA (custom made). Some of the side issues would be exposure mild radiation poisoning by just using the weapon, on the receiving end thought it would add Moderate radiation poisoning and contamination.

Some of the specifics with the adept powers would be Improved Reflexes, Mystic Armor, Elemental Resistance [Radiation], Natural Immunity to highlight the list. Basically the power list would be dual purpose in that is would add survivability in combat and protection for radiation from his weapon and from the environment.

As far as other gear and the like it would be full armor suit and helmet with radiation shielding to add a second layer of protection not only to combat but also radiation.

I was thinking of the adept having a mentor spirit of Radiation too.

As far as which type of twisted I don't don't know yet I'm leaning with path of death or path of maho/demons.

well there we have any input is welcome just be constructive I'm not here to argue just to share thoughts.

Thanks,
Brent

first off, this sword had better be a 2-handed weapon.

secondly, it takes a long time to give someone radiation poisoning from depleted uranium. while it would definitely be wise to protect the wielder from radiation, because the wielder will be facing long-term exposure, the person being attacked is not likely to suffer any significant effects from being hit by a depleted uranium sword (other than the fact that it's made of a really dense material and is therefore going to leave quite a mark...)

and finally, i would suggest a posioner toxic adept. seems to make the most sense, imo.

Jaid,

I would agree that it would have to be a two hand sword if it was nothing but DU, but I was thinking of the compound construction like a Katana or Damascus. Were it would reduce the weight but keep the desired material properties. But even then it is still possible that it would be a two handed weapon.

I agree that long-term exposure would incur the radiation poisoning and would be fairly safe to use, the information I have found suggests that internal contamination would be far worse here are my links to that information. From this information I find that it is possible for Moderate radiation poisoning.

Depleted Uranium Shells, The Radioactive Weapons
- Perpetuation of War Damage by Radiation -

and

DEPLETED URANIUM FACT SHEET

If you have relevant information to suggest other wise I'm more then willing to through it or have other training or experiences with it for me to take under consideration. I only have what I've been able to find online I had not experience with this material from my time in the Navy.

thanks,
Brent

I started reading the "Nuclear Elementals" thread and that is shedding some light on things I'm going to finish that thread and make some changes. but more input and ideas are welcome.

Thanks,
Brent

You might consider the radiation genemod. That might be enough with your resistance to make you immune to what the sword puts off complete.y

Haggga,

Vary good idea I hadn't see that one.

Thanks,
Brent

if the weapon is not as heavy as a combat axe, it shouldn't be doing as much damage as a combat axe. if it is as heavy as a combat axe, then it should require two hands like a combat axe.

[edit] oh, and it's dangerous if it gets inside you because it's getting inside you as a dust and staying there. they're talking about breathing in depleted uranium dust, drinking contaminated water, and such. unless your sword is injecting depleted uranium dissolved into water into the target's bloodstream (which fact is not implied from your description above) or leaving shards of depleted uranium in the target (which is going to make for an expensive weapon focus since you're going to have to enchant a new one regularly, not to mention being likely to just shatter when struck making it less useful for parrying, etc... also, there's the fact that killing and/or deforming someone a day or 3 [edit2] or, more accurately, after 6 months when the radiation hits it's peak, according to your article [/edit2] after the fact is not terribly relevant next to the fact that you're putting a sword into them). [/edit]

Why?


There is no better question.

I could point out all the reasons its stats are silly and why it wouldn't work in real life, but I won't. Instead, I will ask that question. Why make a depleted uranium sword?

Becouse enchanted depleted Uranium Knives are really nice knives.

Speaking of swords made of a strange material, assuming you could magic it not break, what would the stats of an obsidian sword be?

Arsenal has the Macauitl, which is as close as you get to an obsidian sword.

Either the same as a normal sword or the same as a monosword. There is no half way between the two. I lean towards a normal sword. The advantage of obsidian is an extremely smooth cutting edge that doesn't deform easily (though it does chip easily). Its great when cutting soft tissue, not so good as a weapon, however. Even if you could remove the brittleness, I don't see it being that much better than high-quality steels and ceramics.

Edit: About the original point of the topic, I prefer twisted Adepts to be of Athlete's or Speaker's Way.
Those Ways, more than any others, have great potential for twisting without being absurdly cliche or unoriginal or silly. With the former, you can ave a character who is so obsessed with dominance in a sport that they can escalate to the most horrific of crimes, but who also has a twisted code of honor that can be exploited. Have you ever considered a twisted croquet adept with a lead croquet mallet? The Speaker's way leads us to a Jim Jones sort of character, who can talk friends and enemies alike into drinking the green kool-aid.

Instead of DU (used for its denseness and general "lack" (but not complete lack, as we've found) of radiation, why not use Plutonium--it's really toxic in minute doses, actually radioactive, and generally scarier. Maybe have plutonium inserts along the edges--drop the direct damage and create an area of effect of radiation poisoning. Or have the character spread plutonium dust (super lethal and nasty.)

Adepts can't have Mentor Spirits.

I'm fairly certain Adepts **CAN** per Street Magic.

I'm fairly certain they can't.

Pg. 79, BBB says "This quality (Mentor Spirit) is only available to characters with either the Magician or Mystic Adept quality."

I've searched pretty thoroughly through my Street Magic PDF and can't find any reference to adepts being allowed the quality all of a sudden. I guess there's a potential implication (pg. 45, SM) that adepts of the Shamanic Way can have a mentor spirit, but it's not spelled out in the rules.

Give the adept a normal weapon, and give him the Energy Aura (Radiation) adept ability. That's a lot, a lot more deadly though. +4 DV and bypasses armor.

I have read your post about nuclear elementals it help some with this concept.

As far as Energy Aura as an adept power I'm not sure if I'd allow it, though I have the evaluation that is would take for a PC to get there. There is just to much power.

As far as the mentor spirit goes that is a house rule of mine sorry I forgot to mention it.

I like the idea of Plutonium in stead of DU I'll have to do some research to see what I think.

Thanks,
Brent

The vibro sword doesn't weight as much as a battle axe but does the same damage. But any who my thinking was again that is was composite construction which would reduce weight but keep the edge performance. With the density of DU I think it would yield vary effective in punching through armor hence the -2 ap, plus the with same performance it would be reasonable to think that it would add a +4 to 1/2 str only one more than a katana. But I agree that it still might be a two-handed weapon because with further research it would weight about 4 times that of a normal weapon if was made totally out of DU. So a average Katana weights 3 lbs. that would be 12 lbs with DU.

I'm going to yield the second part do to fact I don't want to argue about it. That part was only a side effect that I wasn't too much of a concern with it any ways.

the vibro sword isn't just a different material, it's basically like using a sword-shaped chainsaw. it doesn't function on the same principle. the depleted uranium sword is just a really hard, really heavy, (slightly more radioactive than the environment) sword. that is what it would derive it's increased damage from, if anything. now if you wanted to talk about a depleted uranium vibro-sword, you might have some grounds for expecting higher damage from the same weight, but it would have nothing to do with the material.

p. 175 hints at the possibility.

Mystic Adepts can have Mentor Spirits. I think pg.175 is just lazy language and probably deserves an erratum.

I certainly don't think that a hint at a possibility overrides an explicit statement in the BBB.

Actually, uranium isn't particularly hard; you can cut it with a knife. This is why it is typically alloyed with nickle and zinc when used as a penetrator. Staballoys (depleted uranium alloys) are inferior in hardness to hardened steel; but their high density make them excellent armor penetrators, particularly combined with the fact that they're self-sharpening at high velocities (far higher than a human arm can achieve, so this self-sharpening is useless in a sword).




Fuck no.

What you refer to is called pattern welding. Pattern welding was used when high-quality steel was extremely expensive and difficult to make, primarily to save money. You take a piece of cheap low-carbon steel and a piece of expensive high-carbon steel, heat them up, and pound them together until they fuse into one piece of steel through the miracle of solid-state diffusion. The result is a piece of steel with averaged carbon content and averaged cost. It fell out of favor with the advent of scalable industrial steelmaking techniques, which allowed the reliable mass-production of high-quality steel.

Note that this is not "Damascus" steel. Pattern welded blades are often marketed as such by knife-makers, but the two are very different. Traditional Damascus steel is a variety of wootz (an Indian crucible steel made by melting iron, charcoal, and glass together) made using a particular iron ore found in a mine near Damascus, Syria which has long since ran dry. The unique and unknown properties of that ore allowed teh Damascus steelmakers to created a variety of wootz which contained iron-carbide nanowires and carbon nanotubes. These nanostructures in the steel gave Damascus steel great strength and durability. Currently, no one knows how to reproduce it. The ore used hasn't been around since with 18th century and the smiths who know the process used to make it are all long dead.
The important point is that pattern-welding isn't used in real Damascus blades.


Also, and this applies to your suggestion more than anything else, you can only do pattern welding with like metals.
You can do forge welding with differing metals, sure, but the process is different, it involves creating a eutectic alloy between the two metals being welded, since they can't be fused into a single piece. I'll admit that I don't know enough about uranium alloying to know if it is possible to create a uranium-steel eutectic. What I do know is that there wouldn't be any point in it since steel alone will produce a superior blade and it would be damned dangerous to try.

Uranium, you see, is pyrophoric. It's ignition temperature is lower than room temperature. All you need is to give it a little push, make some sparks. Heating it in a furnace and pounding it with a hammer is thus extremely unwise. If you heat it too much before hammering, you'll end up with a chunk of burning metal and a lung-full of uranium-oxide smoke. This is not good.

Since uranium is softer than steel, and heavier than steel, and you can't take advantage of its self-sharpening properties in a hand-held weapon, and its pyrophoric properties really wouldn't be that useful in a sword, there is really no reason to even try such insanity. If you did, you'd end up with a weapon that is far inferior to a steel sword. The edge wouldn't be nearly as strong, because uranium can't be hardened the way steel can be and the extra weight would make it far too heavy to actually wield in combat.

You could also try posession of a force 1 nuclear spirit (to get his aura). In fact, the reason why I built my thread was a Toxic Shaman my friends are going to try and collect the bounty on has a F6 Nuclear Spirit posessing/channeling in him.

You know, radiation doesn't leave metals (IIRC). So you could use a sword that's been exposed to multiple 'hot' sources to the point where it has its own seivert rating.

Hyzmarca,

Yes I have see most of that, I was using terms I have been use too, but thank you for shedding more light on the subject. There are plenty of good things you touched on.

Thanks,

Neraph,

I've been thinking on that Idea but I'm not sure what I think about it.

Thanks,
Brent